Cherry Coated
by happyapples
Summary: When Nettie and Hector meet the girl on the wanted posters, they know she's hiding something. When she was just a kid, she lost her best friend to the slave trade. Now she's bound and determined to get her back. Little does she know her friend has ended up in Candieland. They agree to help her save her friend, but things don't go as planned. Turns out Candie has a separate agenda.


Chapter one: Out In the Open

"Nettie, Are you sure you don't want to take a rest?" Hector asked, bringing the reigns of his horse closer to his chest and pulling slightly.

Nettie peered back at him through eyes squinted by the harsh Texas sun and blew a stray hair from her eye. He always did this; pretended she was fragile and that she hadn't been hardened to the adventuring lifestyle- if that's what you wanted to call it. "I ain't tired, Hector," she assured him.

He gave a sigh, something he always did when he was on the brink of disagreeing with her, and swiped a sweaty palm through his hair. No wind ran through the El Paso pass and that made it extremely difficult to even catch your breath down there- especially since they were about twenty feet under ground level without a sign of life for miles- it was just the hot, scorching sun on their skin and a couple of tumbleweeds to keep them company.

Except for the horse. The horse they had found a few hundred miles back yesterday was a beautiful stallion whose coat was colored brownish reddish and whose eyes were a deep olive color. Its back had a couple of deeper, sandal brown spots running over its torso in a strange way that they'd never seen on a horse before. Nettie had told Hector that it looked like the moon going through its numerous phases, and he had shrugged, agreeing with her like always. And who couldn't? Nettie was the sweetest girl a guy could want- she'd been kind enough to pick that horse up miles back when they were passing by a tiny pond carved into the center of some rocks and a few stray blades of grass. He was now wishing he had that pond back. Sure, he liked riding the horses down here, but today it was scorching. Not even the thick walls of rock surrounding them could keep out the fireball in the sky's heat. He wiped his forehead again, clearing his dry throat. The horses were slowed to a trot- Hector feared they'd pass out from the exhaustion of all that heat- and they were moving like lazy ants, dragging the stray beast behind them. It had tried to get away at first, but after the first sixty miles or so, it had given up. Now it was just walking steadily behind Nettie, chewing at the air, trying to get the bit out of its mouth that Hector had put in.

He was about to ask his wife again if she just wanted to take a break, but he knew not to push her. Nettie was stubborn like hard, rocky ground. When she had her mind set on something, it was hard to get it off that something- especially if it had to deal with their line of business in particular.

Hector pulled the reigns of his horse once again to get her to slow down a bit. She liked to speed up even if he didn't want her to and had a tendency to break out into a full-on sprint when he wasn't paying attention. She'd been that way ever since she was a pony. Nettie's horse was black and behaved; a lovely stallion that was in direct contrast with his own, chalky white, old mare.

"I don't think anyone would be out here in this heat anyway," he told her nonchalantly, "they would have to be crazy."

"Or stupid," she retorted.

"Well there you go."

She glared back at him but he only gave a small smile and a tip of his hat. Just because she wouldn't accept his questions didn't mean she wouldn't take into consideration his suggestions.

Nettie couldn't contain the smile that was shot back at him through her half sneer. She shrugged him off, turning back around to grip Moonlight's reigns even tighter, her concentration drifting up ahead, and then to both sides to scan the bright white washed rocks for any signs of life. She was starting to think hector was right. As usual, his reasoning always prevailed. Who would be stupid enough to be traveling through the El Paso Pass in this heat? Especially since half their party mighta been on foot. Bare foot. She cringed and stole a side glance down at her feet, covered by tan boots.

"What are you looking at?" Hector called.

"My feet," she replied, taking her eyes and placing them on the lookout once again.

He gave a laugh. "Of course."

"What exactly is that sposed to mean, Heck? Can't I look at my feet an' not be judged?" She asked playfully, smiling to herself.

Hector liked the fact that now the conversation had turned and entirely different taste and it was on feet. He loved that. And he loved how she said feet- not only because he liked her southern accent, but that was his favorite word to hear her say. It was strange, granted, but when you were with someone long enough, you developed tiny things like that that made no sense to think about them. And Nettie had a way of leaving lasting impressions on everyone she met. Not just because she was sociable and sweet, but because her voice carried a whisper light tone all of its own. When you were talking to her, you felt like her whole undivided attention was strictly focused on you. If you were in a room, everyone else would just kind of fade away. Nettie had a way of making people feel special.

They had stopped. She had stopped- right in her tracks, drawing the horse's hoof beats to a close abruptly. He almost ran into the back of the stray horse, and it whinnied at him as if telling him to apologize. He cocked an eyebrow at it, and then looked ahead to where Nettie was, sitting perfectly still on Moonlight, her eyes cast straight ahead. He peered over her shoulder to try and see what she was seeing, but she had much better eyesight than he did and all he could make out was the slithering heat lines rising off the hot Texas sand in front of them.

"What do you see?" he asked her, his voice lowered.

She held up a small hand of silence and leaned foreword a bit, not bothering to look back at him. Just as suddenly as she'd stopped, she hopped off the horse and landed on the ground, kicking up dust in her wake. She began to move foreword, ducking behind some tall rocks to conceal herself from whatever she was looking at, her feet clopping across the hot ground.

He jumped down after her, leading his horse and then hers behind some tall boulders and tying them to a small log before going after her down the hot, sandy trail. "What is it, Nettie?" he asked, creeping up beside her.

She was ducked behind a cluster of white rocks imbedded into the ground, and had just taken her silver gun out of its holder at her waist- was holding it in her hand in a manner that had him wondering who exactly she'd seen.

She turned her head to his, their face inches apart. Her breath hitched in her throat, and she gave a single nod over her shoulder towards what she had been looking at. "I saw some man. On a horse. Went behind those rocks over there."

"What did he look like?"

"Criminy, I dunno. He had a hat on, tipped real low," she told him quietly.

He gave a small smile. "We could have just found our guy."

"Yeah, one of em'," she nodded, a small pout forming on her lips. Right on cue, out from behind the cluster of rocks about a yard away, there came a man with his hat tipped low on his head, riding on a tall pony with a grizzly brown main. He was followed by four dark skinned men, there ankles chained together, and another man came behind them, riding on a horse almost identical to the other mans.

"Oh yeah," Nettie murmured under her breath, "That's em all right."

Hector squinted to get a better look at the two slave drivers, taking his own pistol out of its home at his hip. They both had dark brown hair, thick beards, and one had the same eyepatch over his eye as in the poster. It was the Harrilsons. "Jackpot," Hector told Nettie, getting close to her now crouched form on the ground. "So, you get the big one, I'll get the little one?"

Nettie raised an eyebrow. "They're both the same size, Heck," she whispered.

"Exactly," he grinned.

She smiled back and gave one small head nod. "I want one-eyed Joe."

"You got yerself a deal," he drawled in his fake southern accent, rolling his shoulders back so they would crack into place. After hours of riding, they had finally found their guys and it was going to be a relief to make it back safe tonight.

Nettie chuckled and raised her gun into the air while standing slowly at the same time, her legs cracking like his shoulders had as she did so.

Suddenly a shot rang hollow through the passage and at the same time the eyepatch man had gone flying head first off his horse, almost landing on one of the slaves as he crashed to the ground in a heavy, sickening thump that Hector could hear even from that many feet away. Nettie's and his mouths both dropped open.

"What the-" Nettie began.

Another shot burst through the air before the other man had time to even turn around and sent him flying sideways off his disheveled pony, blood spilling from his head into the dry air and onto the ground. The horses cried out, rearing up on their hind legs to run off, but just as that was about to take place, a man ran out from between a cluster of rocks closest to them and grabbed onto one's reigns, placing his hand on the beasts neck. Instantly, the pony seemed to settle with wild eyes. It huffed against the strangers hand as the other one made off, blood coating its back from its riders head, quite literally blown through with a hole the size of a fist.

Nettie was already running out into the open, taking her anger with her and letting it boil on her face. Hector raced after her.

"Hey!" Nettie called to the man.

He did a full three-sixty, drew the pistol from its holster, and shot.

Hector pounced on Nettie from behind just as the bullet grazed his shoulder, and they both fell to the ground, Hector landing on Nettie and covering her with his body like a tarp. "WAIT!" he screeched. The stranger didn't listen and another bullet whizzed by their heads just as he rolled over on the ground with Nettie, crying out for the man to stop, barely registering the searing pain coursing through his right shoulder where the bullet had left a nice sized gash that was now spurting blood that was all over him and Nettie.

Gun fire ceased, and he heaved a sigh of both hysteria and relief as he looked down at Nettie, unharmed with only dust coated through her hair and pure terror in her eyes. She reached up to his shoulder, her mouth opening wide. "You're hurt," she said. A moment later she was grabbing the sweat bandana from her pocket and sitting up to wrap the cloth around his upper arm as tight as she could to seal the bleeding off. She curled up the sleeve of his riding jacket and secured the bandana so that it was putting full pressure on his blood gushing arm. Hector was leaning over her on his hands and knees and she had her hands, now blood coated, wrapped around the wound, trying desperately to stop the bleeding. It must've been quite the sight to see and as the stranger walked towards them, boot falls heavy on the ground, he must've been either amused or really pissed off.

As soon as the stranger neared, Nettie's eyes widened over Hector's shoulder. "Heck.." she started to say, looking up at him.

"Who is it?" he gasped through gritted teeth.

"Turn around an see fo yoself," came a distinctly feminine voice from above him, scratchy from the brawl.

Hector's eyes widened as well.


End file.
